When I first started reading about zen concepts and living contemplatively, I couldn't grasp being able to live in the world this way. I would think, "sure buddhist monks can get out of their ego and become masters while in solitude, outside of our world with its ego driven value system." "Sure they can be contemplative and peaceful, they aren't working, running a household and driving 3 kids around to sports and music lessons." "The two masters I've seen on tours have people that get them around and make the arrangements, where's my person that interfaces with the world so I can stay in my groove?" I couldn't marry contemplation and action.
I have begun to bring it into parenting in sporadic successful moments, enough to encourage me to keep trying. I hadn't tried it at work yet. A visit with a spiritual director over the weekend brought attention to this fact and asked me to try "bringing sacred mystery (soul) to work with me." I thought about that for several days before making an intention to try. Yesterday, I got a particularly annoying email early in the morning. I thought this would be a good time to try disconnecting the hook in my ego. Before I walked out the door, I thought, "I am bringing sacred mystery with me today." About 2 minutes into my commute, I got an idea. Instead of stewing on the qualities of the email and the judgements I am making about the sender, I feel grateful about another co-worker's authentic use of kindness and humility when sending the same email content. My anger immediately dissolved. I decided to show gratitude to the worker whose communication and character I really value. I had a face to face meeting and shared specific appreciation for his humility and respect. It was very healing for me and he told me that it meant a lot to him.
My next step will be to make a clear and doable request to the other co-worker. I will need to contemplate the best way of doing that to create a connection at the soul level and not keep it at the defensive ego level.
I believe the hardest work we have is bringing the sacred into our daily lives in places that our culture really values what the ego values. It is the most warranted place to bring it if we intend to transform ourselves and the world we live in.